Kirkstall Abbey

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It is incredible sunny and hot (about 25 degrees) in these two days, and it feels like properly summer with the hot heat. We decided to walk down to the canal and had a picnic in Kirkstall Abbey museum at the weekend. The Abbey was built in 12th century, and sadly was destroyed by Henry VIII when he reformed all the Catholic churches in 14th century.

You can see that the church was enormous, but only half left behind and preserved it, so I needed to touch the stones and felt I touched something so old and valuable. It was really nice to imagine how did normal people live in that era?

It was so peaceful and natural surrounding by the canal and parks. People were sunbathing, and enjoyed the great day of summer with their friends. What a wonderful weather and a fantastic day!

My late 28 birthday present!

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John was back from San Francisco yesterday, and bought me a new Mac Pro as my late 28th birthday present. The new Mac Pro 13 inch is fantastic. Compared with my white Mac book, it got powerful screen resolution, better hard drive and all the new feature from the Mac Pro. I really love using it. It certainly feels stronger and professional.

Luckily we got the Ipad for free as John’s boss gave him for his programming. It was completely out of stocks in San Francisco when he tried to find one. It’s really an amazing computer. I can imagine using it when I am reading book, playing games, sharing pictures with others, sit lazily on the sofa just browsing the website. UK will be released the Ipad at the end of this month and sell £429 for 16G (wi-fi), and £699 64GB version complete with Wi-Fi and 3G access. It is quite expensive buying in the UK, as the price you can buy a brand new laptop.

Something about Apple which people are obsessed about is its stylish design, professional programmes, nice and simple to use, and it always leads the frontier technological invention.

Miike Snow (2009)

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I saw one website was introduced Miike Snow’s – ‘Song For No One’, and after listened to the whole album, I really enjoy this new album releasing in 2009.

Miike Snow is from Swedish band, and these days I just can’t fall in love the Swedish electronic music.

My favourite songs are:

  • Animal
  • Silvia
  • Song For No One
  • Black & Blue
  • A Horse is Not A Home
  • Plastic Jungle
  • In Search of
  • Faker

Highly recommended, check it out in Spotify for free (UK only) or their MySpace page to see whether you like them or not.

Chet Baker – always steal my heart

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May 13 1988 the great musician Chet Baker had passed away. He is always one of my favourite Jazz musicians with his legendary trumpet and sentimental voice.After watching his documentary in BBC iplayer – Let’s get lost, and knew much more about Chet. He was such a talent for music and trumpet. Jazz was the most popular music in his era, and he was naturally picked it up without any properly training.

Chet’s personal life was quite a story. He had married three times, and all women just felt in love with him instantly. However, he never settled down in a place. Not like nowadays’ musician, he didn’t have too much glamour extravagant life style. He had been tried very hard to survive in recession as a musician. His life was like a dream – floating and travelling all the time. He was alike a lot of  musicians – do whatever he liked, no limitation and all about freedom. He preferred performing in Europe rather than the State personally and he was such a hit in Europe in that time from Let’s get lost documentary.

He was such a charming and passionate musician. Even after watching his documentary, I did fall in love with him as well. Chet was indeed a handsome and boyish look with his incredible gentle and soft voice. When he sang, your heart is literally melting, and you could just non-stop listening to his music, just like a magnet.

I found it is so interesting that even he aged in late 50, he still could sing and perform so well, and his voice didn’t age at all. Unfortunately drugs got him killed – what a pity! As my website is using theWordPress programme, the 2.8 named the version called Baker because the owner Matt Mullenweg likes Jazz as well.

One thing I like about Chet’s music is more unique and the way he liked to play jazz, more like smooth Jazz rather than commercial jazz.  Chet’s music will always in our hearts and every time when I listen to his songs, it makes me think, day-dreaming and feel the world – about sadness and happiness. I could listen to his songs nights and days.

Found an interesting article about Chet Baker’s

Visiting York for a day

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Since we moved to Leeds, we haven’t got time to explore North Yorkshire yet. It was warm and sunny yesterday, so we decided to travel to York for a day, and to enjoy the Spring weather.

York was founded by the Romans in 71 AD, so is famous of its nature beauty and historical heritage. It is a wealthy small city with a lot of historical churches, buildings, and houses in every little corner. The picture I took in the front cover was one of the churches properly had knocked down by Henry VIII in 16th century.

We also went to see the famous Jórvík Viking Centre and experienced how the Vikings’ lives were in 866 AD. It was really authentic experience and they said you supposed to smell of the Vikings’ cooking too. It was indeed a really fun experience. At lunch, I ordered a famous ‘a taste of York’ roast belly pork sandwich and was incredible delicious. After lunch and few cup of tea, we went to see the Railway Museum and to see how Britain was so powerful and rich when it had discovered the steam engines and the world was changed after it.

York is really a nice place to visit and I am sure we will return it next time to discover more castles or scenery nearby York as well. Here are some pictures we took.

从搬来利兹之后，忙于各种各样的东西，都没有时间去旅游。昨天太阳高照，我们决定去出了名历史悠久的约克城市观光下。约克大概有1千9百年历史，果然是历史悠久的城市，所以你到处可以看到很多15－16世纪的教堂啊，18世纪的房子。象伦敦一样，路上的每个砖头都有历史味道，当然，以年龄来说，约克比伦敦老很多。约克曾被称为当时的英国首都。约克是一个蛮富裕的城市，可以感觉到以前或现在都是蛮有钱人住的城市。一个蛮小休闲的城市，居然很多名牌都部落在街头，感觉游客们个个都穿得富贵华丽，街头也有很多名贵的豪华车，不愧是以前的首都。

封面的照片应该是16世纪亨利八世反对天主教然后毁灭掉的教堂。我还走过去摸了摸1千多年的教堂石头，教堂的毁灭真的蛮可惜的。我们还去体验了北欧海盗侵入约克的时期，地学研究家把海盗们在约克的生活点滴都用假人雕磨出来，假人还会动也会和你说话，虽然有点毛骨悚然，不过还是蛮真实的体验。

中午时候我点了约克最老最有名的烤肉店，我点了烤乳猪肉三文治，超正超多肉 － 真的吃肥死我了。喝了星巴克Latte充实精力后，我们去参观了英国铁路博物馆，看了许多旧的火车和汽车展览，体验了英国蒸汽时代英国的繁荣和如何成为不落日帝国。蛮有趣经历的。

我相信下次我们还回去约克玩，开车去约克周边的城堡啊，坐下小船之类的。等大家来，带你们去约克玩。点击这里我们照了有些约克的照片！

28th Birthday!

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Before my birthday, I already got the best present ever! Plus John’s family bought some presents for me as well – they are incredible nice and sweet. Nothing really special happened on my birthday day. We shopped some households stuff and John treated me to have a big sunday roast, which is my favourite food ever!

We walked to the Whitehall road, and the restaurant called The Roast near the canal served really nice british food. It was sunday, so they only served sunday roast. It was £5 per person, then we had some sticky toffee pudding with custard too! Yum! Beef was tender and juicy with a lot of vegetable and the home-made gravy. The yorkshire pudding was nice and light, not flowery at all! Oh, comfort food is the best sometimes. Definitely need to return!

Trini sent the song from Lorene Scfaria called 28 , singing that we are turning to 28! Things ganna be great!

Friday night out in Leeds

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Since moved to Leeds, we have been so busy organising the new house. After two weeks, we finished it mostly, and decided to eat out on Friday night.

Piccolino Restaurant

I haven’t try a lot of restaurants yet, but it certainly plenty in city centre. On John’s birthday, we went to the Italian restaurant Piccolino Restaurant in Park Row. It was really expensive like London price. Main courses are like £12-14. I ordered a sausage risotto and was really a good one. However, portion was small, but taste really authentic! John and Mel ordered the chicken pizza and they both said it was really good. 4 out of 5 stars

Primo Ristorante

On Friday night, we tried another Italian restaurant downstairs of our building called Primo Ristorante. It had really fancy decoration inside. Price is really good – main courses are from £10, and pasta / Pizza was £6-7. Wine is from £14. Dishes was well presented, and really tasty; services were friendly too! However, I wish the dishes could be bigger portion. For example, I ordered a duck with berries sauce, and it came with 4 pieces meats. Despite the portion, it tasted really good. 4 out of 5 stars

Sky Lounge

Then we went to the popular bar called Sky Lounge on the top of the City Inn Hotel. The decoration and atmosphere was fantastic. Drinks are same price in London, but worth a try and certainly will bring my friends there again!

It all thanks to Melanie and Paul to take us to experience these good places!

Moved from London to Leeds…

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We decided to leave London and living in Leeds for a year to experience different cities of the UK. It has been two years for me leaving in London. It was sad to leave the charming London and my friends. However, life is always on the move.

We live in the financial city centre Wellington Street in Leeds, and 5 minutes walk to the shopping centre, thus easily to find many restaurants and supermarkets for us. Location is perfect. Besides, the most exciting me is the our new apartment. It is 8 floor high, new, modern, spacious with 900 sqt with en-suit, plus one supermarket is just downstairs. What’s more, I got a fantastic huge wardrobe to fit all my clothes and shoes. John got a big spacious office room. This is exactly what we need.

In early March, we moved to the apartment and started to clean and made our home in Leeds. Leeds for us was a complete stranger, only John’s sister lives in Leeds. But I am sure we will explore the Yorkshire well in the future. Hopefully after all settling down, we will buy a car soon and start our adventure journey.

I love our new flat and new life – so many excitements to discover!

Japanese Okonomiyaki

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It was our ast weekend living in London, so we met Eileen to try the Japanese Okonomiyaki in near Leicester Square Station. The restaurant Abeno is really famous Okonomiyaki in town. I remember Eileen took me there last year, and I loved it so much.

Okonomiyaki is like the omelettes with different meats, or seafood or vegetables inside, and on top with Japanese mayonnaise sources. So we decided to take John there for his first Japanese meal in town. The restaurant is small with only three tables and a round sussi bar. Luckily, we got a table, then we tried some Japanese beers, two okonomiywaki with different meats, and one Om-Soba.

Waiters bought all the raw ingredients in a bowl and used teppan-yaki grill to pan-fried everything into a pancake. You got the entertainment from the waiter cooking in front of you. Then at last, dressing with Japanese mayonnaise, BBQ sources, then some fish flakes on top. (dressing are optional)

It was so tasty and highly recommended. Surprisingly John really loved it. I was not sure that Japanese food is his cup of tea, but he tried, and he liked it.

Girls’ Fun weekend + Jin Go Gae Korean BBQ

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Fun Girls’ weekend

John went to Ireland a week for his business trip, so I asked Eileen to stay my house for the weekend, so girls can enjoy some champagne and eat different food. As we planned before, we went to eat unlimited PingPong Dimsum on Friday night, then we were back home and we drunk two bottles of Rose Wine while we were chatting. It was dizzy but so much fun to get crazy sometimes.

Next morning, I cooked my new recipes Green Thai Prawn with baby spanish and Jasmine rice for lunch. It was so easy to cook and we enjoyed it so much. Then we decided to travel to Wimbledon where Eileen lives and had a walk in the park, then went to try the famous Korean Barbecue in New Malden.

Jin Go Gae Korean BBQ Review

Eileen from Soul of South Korean so she introduced to us a lot of Korean food and culture. We have been tried different Korean food in Central London. However, people say that New Malden is one of the popular Korean communities and the food from there is more authentic and cheaper. While we were in Wimbledon, New Malden is just 10 minutes by bus.

Eileen has booked the table of the famous restaurant called Jin Go Gae, and Miwa joined us for dinner as well, so we hopped on the bus 131 from Central Wimbledon and went to Burlington Road. We are so glad that we booked the table, because it was a small restaurant, and packed with Korean, Japanese Asian people eating there.

First, we were served with several compliments dishes which is impossible to find in Central London. Then Eileen ordered three portions of BBQ Beef Ribs and two portions of Pork Belly. All the meats were Marianne with delicious sauces, and you Barbecued by yourself. Then when it was done, you need to use the raw Vegetable rapped with the meat plus some spicy green onion or rice. The meat was unbelievable tender and juicy. Miwa and I was eating non-stop and Eileen was laughing at us.

It was the most delicious Korean BBQ ever. I gave it 5 stars and we only paid £15 each! What a good meal and bargain!

Place: 272 Burlington Road, KT3 4NL
Tel: 020 8949 2506
Tube: Nearest Train station: Motspur Park Rail / Raynes Park

女人周末大吃会

约翰去爱尔兰出差1周，我叫好朋友Eileen周末过来我家住，两个女的一起吃喝聊天。约了周5见面，先去PingPong喝茶吃点心。然后回到我家，两人买了1瓶香槟喝酒聊天，然后感觉还不够mood, 再去买多一瓶。聊天到凌晨1点然后睡觉。

隔天，我煮了泰国绿咖喱大虾加菠菜给Eileen，她说味道十分正宗也十分美味，全都吃完。然后我们去温布顿Eileen的家坐会，决定晚上吃期待已久的韩国BBQ烤肉料理。Eileen幸好定了位置，因为那家人十分受欢迎。美和决定加入我们的大吃团。进了餐厅，哇，烧烤肉的味道都漂入你鼻子，再看看，里面都是坐的全是韩国人和日本人。

韩国烤肉我实在太喜欢了，正宗的吃法是用碳熏肉，然后加生菜和辣葱和肉一起吃。我们点了3大份牛肉2大份猪肉。我和美和吃得太高兴，生活肉是奄过，烤完一点都不老，多汁加十分鲜甜！实在太野味了。Eileen总笑我们吃得狼吞虎咽，韩国烤肉实在太好吃了，我天天吃都没有可以。我们实在享受这次女人周末大吃会。